Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Goodbye Tax Day '08, Hello Tax Day '09 (with big new incentives to sweeten the deal); Birds taking the long way home; "Greenwashing"; PLUS: Solar power...in SPAAAAACE.... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (links below): Six Degrees of Tom Delay, or How a Climate Denier Helped the EPA Get Its Groove Back; abandoned housing developments reverting to nature; Norway lays claim to (part of) the Arctic; the high energy cost of spam; AND: the Somali pirate problem --- toxic dumping and overfishing to blame? ....See below for more!

Info/links on stuff we talked about on today's episode, plus MORE green news, all follows below...

The stimulus legislation allows consumers to claim a 30 percent tax credit in 2009 and 2010 for the purchase and installation of renewable-energy products such as wind turbines, solar panels, and geothermal heat pumps. Taxpayers may also claim a 30 percent credit, up to $1,500, for qualifying energy-efficient home improvements including insulation, ultra-efficient heating and cooling systems, and replacement windows.
...
The tax credits are already boosting consumer interest, says Dave Moody, director of field marketing for Service Experts Inc., a heating and cooling company with 120 branches nationwide. “It’s having the desired intent,” he says. “It’s driving people toward energy conservation and more efficient appliances, from our observation.”

Solaren proposes placing solar panels on a satellite to generate electricity that is converted to radio frequency energy on-board and sent to a ground station in California. The receiver then converts the radio frequency energy to electricity and it is fed into the power grid.

"The good news is that the growing availability of green products shows that consumers are demanding more environmentally responsible choices and that marketers and manufacturers are listening", said TerraChoice Chief Executive Scott McDougall. "The bad news is that TerraChoice's survey of 2,219 consumer products in Canada and the U.S. shows that 98 percent committed at least one sin of greenwashing and that some marketers are exploiting consumers' demand for third-party certification by creating fake labels or false suggestions of third-party endorsement."

Take Tom Delay, the former congressional GOP leader with a longstanding hatred for the U.S. EPA and doubt about climate change, and figure out how, by six degrees of separation, he triggered the Supreme Court ruling that’s now giving Congressional Democrats leverage to push climate policy through Congress.

Does not compute, right? This is the guy who once called the EPA the “gestapo of government” and tried to virtually eliminate toxic waste laws during his Washington heyday in the 1990s. Well, the Obama administration energy czar, Carol Browner, drew the connection in six degrees at MIT’s conference on energy policy this week. Here’s how...

Agreement on shelf limits gives states the right to exploit resources on and beneath the seabed, such as oil and gas or the genes of marine organisms, officials said.

A U.S. official report last year said the Arctic contains enough oil and gas to meet current world demand for three years, or 90 billion barrels. And global warming may make the region more accessible.

McAfee, a maker of antivirus software, has commissioned a study of the energy cost of spam. The report suggests that it's substantial, but the biggest cost isn't in the filtering; it comes from all the user intervention required.

Yup, BH. That's the point we've been trying to make around here for years.

Now if everyone who listens to the Green News Report (here, or elsewhere) calls their local radio stations and asks them to run it --- it's free to them! --- it would certainly help to take the tiniest bite out of the rigged corporate media theft of the public's airwaves.

You know, I really, really like the Green News Report. It so cheerfully presents the bad news... which I honestly think will help more people pay attention... and gives me a little lift while world news is compressing me into a fossil fuel....

Brad, whatever you can do to publicize this nationwide and put pressure on Tallahassee is needed. Thanks, Kindra

Attention Concerned Florida Voters:
Don't be fooled by side comments about the dangerous bill SB956 being fast-tracked through the Senate and House. Don't be appeased by minor amendments. This bill must be STOPPED.

It's primary purpose is to give ALL POWER OVER ELECTIONS to the Department of State. The ramifications of such concentrated power could be devastating.

Call and email your legislators this weekend to tell them to VOTE NO on SB956 and House Bill PCB-EDCA 09-08. Leave a message now. The phones may be busy on Monday. The bill could go to the floor of the Senate and House by Tuesday or Wednesday, April 21st or 22nd.

concentrates all power in the Secretary of State
hurts voter registration efforts
hurts petition-gathering efforts
imposes arbitrary fines
forces people to vote on provisional ballots, if they have changed their address recently
limits the number of voter IDs, hurting the elderly, poor, and disabled
expands the "no solicitation zone", keeping needed information from voters
increases purging of voter rolls right before elections
sweeps away local ordinances and voter protections
opens the floodgates to lobbyist spending on elections

THIS BILL IS ANTI-VOTER, ANTI-ELECTION PROTECTION, AND ANTI-DEMOCRACY

CALL NOW TO HELP STOP THIS BILL. ALL TALLAHASSEE LEGISLATORS STATEWIDE MUST HEAR FROM THEIR VOTERS.